Both Stan and Gregory nodded, but it was obvious that they were less pleased with this role, and the definition that they were to be a diversion rather than the main attack.
“So it’s Third Corps and nothing else?” Stan asked.
“Yes. We have to keep a minimum of two corps here in Tyre to hold this base. I think one corps is more than enough.”
“You ready?” Hans asked.
Stan smiled, shifting the plug of tobacco in his cheek, looking a bit like a younger version of Hans.
“We scraped up ten days of rations per man, one hundred rounds of ammunition with an additional hundred in the supply wagons. New shoes have been issued. We’re ready.”
“And your feelings on this one?” Timokin asked.
Stan smiled. “Oh, about the same as everyone else, I guess. But what the hell. Kinda figured we all should have drowned off the coast of Carolina ten years ago. Every day since has been a bonus. If we’re going to go down, let me do it out in the open fighting. Tell me where to go, Hans, we’ll get there.”
Hans smiled and looked over at Vincent. The three corps cut off in Tyre had developed a unique spirit. In the one sense they felt abandoned, cut off on a useless front while the big actions were fought up around Roum. But on the other side they had a blind faith in Hans and any sense of difference between Rus and Roum had been burned out of them during the harrowing retreat from the Green Mountains down to this coastal port and the long months in the trenches afterward. These men were battle-hardened but not battle-exhausted as were the survivors of Roum and the nightmare assault at Capua.
“Effectives?”
“Ten thousand two hundred men with the corps ready to march. Six batteries of breech-loading three-inchers, and one mounted regiment.”
“What about supply wagons?” Gregory asked. “That’s the crucial thing. We need healthy horses and good strong wagons that can keep up.”
“About a hundred,” came the reply, and again there was the look of exasperation from Gregory.
“Hell, four hundred wounded in a fight, and we’re in trouble.” He looked over at Hans.
After the horror of leaving over a thousand wounded behind during the retreat of last year, Hans had made a firm statement that never again would wounded by abandoned. He shifted uncomfortably.
“Ammunition and coal oil have to come first. With luck we’ll capture a lot of horses at the start. That’ll alleviate food and transport for lightly wounded. Wounded that can be saved get wagon space; those who can’t make it …” He lowered his head, leaving the rest unsaid, that the man would be left behind with a few rounds of ammunition.
“What I figured,” Stan replied. “Just I think of old Jack Whatley at times …” His voice trailed off.
“Anything else?” Hans asked.
The group was silent, looking one to the other.
“Fine, we start up in six hours. Try and get some sleep.” One by one the group headed out. He knew Jack and Gregory would be up all night, double-checking on each machine. Finally, only Vincent was left. He settled down in a chair across the table from Hans, eyed the bottle, and finally uncorked it and took a drink. Hans said nothing.
“War’s changed too much.” Hans sighed, stretching out his stiff leg. “I miss the old ways. God, there was something about a division, an entire corps on the volley line. It was hell, but I’ll never forget Fredericksburg, watching the Irish brigade going up the hill. Damn what a sight.”
“Even Hispania,” Vincent replied. “When we pivoted an entire division, closing off the flank, the men cheering, shoulder to shoulder, perfect alignment, over four thousand men. Wonder if we’ll ever see the likes of that again.”
“Not with these new machines. Changed everything. Guess it’s inevitable. Back on the old world, bet they have ’em as well by now.”
Vincent took another drink and passed the bottle to Hans, who nodded his thanks, shifted his chew, and enjoyed another gulp.
“Don’t go getting yourself killed out there,” Hans said.
“Goes with the job.”
“No, there’s more to it.”
He leaned forward, staring into Vincent’s eyes.
“Son, my generation, Andrew, Pat, Emil, we’ve played out our part. A chapter’s closing with this war. If we win.” He shook his head. “No, when we win, I pray that will be the end of it for us. But that doesn’t end it on this world. You and I, perhaps even more than Andrew and Pat, are the real revolutionaries. I was their prisoner. You, well you had your own torment from them.”
Vincent said nothing.
“We both know this war will have to sweep the entire world. The Bantag are of the great northern hordes, but there must be more out there. We only know of one small part of this world. We have no idea of what is southward beyond the realm of the Bantag, what’s on the other side, what threats there still are. The only hope is to free all of humanity on this world, then build from there. It will be your war then.”
“So stay alive, is that it?”
Hans smiled. “After this is over you’ll have Andrew as your mentor. He thinks he wants to let go of the reins, but knowing Andrew that will change. There’s supposed to be an election at the end of the year. Who knows, he might even run if we still have a country and are still alive. If he does, well you’d be the choice for who would run the army.”
“What about you, or Pat?”
Hans smiled and waved aside the question.
“You can’t have a better model than him to follow. And watch out for him, too. It will be tough at times.”
“As he followed you,” Vincent said, and Hans was surprised to see a softening, something so rare in this boy who had come of age too early in the crucible of war.
Hans cleared his throat nervously.
“You talk like you don’t expect to come back,” Vincent said.
“Well, when you planned this mad operation, what chance did you give to the air operation?”
Vincent said nothing for a moment.
“Well?”
“Varinna was a bit more optimistic than I.”
“I see. But you know, it’s what I wanted, what I said from the very beginning. That's why Andrew decided it was me who should lead it rather than you.”
“I know that now.”
“And Vincent.”
“Yes?”
“I’m going all the way with this one.”
He didn’t mention Andrew’s authorization; he’d only play that if he had to.
“Kind of figured you would,” Vincent replied calmly. Hans looked up at the simple wooden clock hanging over a tattered picture from Gates’s Illustrated, a full-page print of Jack Petracci with four smaller images, one in each corner of the illustration, showing airships fighting.
“Well past ten,” Hans announced. “We’re up at three, so let’s get some sleep.”
Vincent nodded. He was never one to be able to hold his liquor, and the three shots of vodka had made him noddy. Within minutes he was snoring peacefully. Hans stepped outside. By the light of the twin moons he could see the shadowy forms of the airships lined up, men laboring about them in the dark. A wagon clattered past him, trailing a heavy scent of kerosene. He heard muttered snatches of conversation in Rus, Latin, Chin, even a few choice expletives in English. Overhead the Great Wheel filled the sky. It was a comforting sight. A good world this. Maybe we can go beyond the mistakes of the old one, build something better. But first we have to survive, he thought.
He went back into the hut and quietly lay down on the other cot. Strange memories floated for a moment, not of the war, even of the prairie, but long before, Prussia, the scent of the forest wafting through the open window at night when he was a boy. The shadow of his mother coming in to check on him, then drifting away.